WHOOOOOOOOOOSH!!! Hastur’s entire post went right over your head, didn’t it…
so long as you don’t ask and don’t tell!
hardly a show of support, imho
Much like the fact that this is not your own personal board does yours.
> I suppose you tell heterosexuals who mention their marriage to (heartily) “Fuck off! Get that
engagement ring out of my face!”
I sure do. Keep yer freaky ass mating rituals out of my face, het- or homosexual.
I think it’s important to note at this point that
Shiny Gay Republican
is the most killer band name I’ve read on this board in a year.
the thing that irritates me most about the cute little gapgirls and jockboy couples is not when they hold hands or walk with their arms around each other.
it is when they cannot do anything without dragging the other one along, or call each other by dumbass little nicknames in public, or start sucking face in public. it was bad at my high school, you almost had to shove the entwined pair away before you could get to class.
So if I were to say that eating watermelon, having illegitmate kids on welfare was just “part of the African American lifestyle” that would be okay?
Listen, motherfucker, you’re pissing me off. WE DON’T TALK WITH LISPS, I don’t know anyone who vacations in Key West, and I sure as hell don’t wear paisley. So that fact that you think it’s okay to lump me into this wretched “gay lifestyle” fantasy is really irritating.
Why is “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” not demeaning? Because it’s PLURAL, ya moron.
First I missed out on the Gay Agenda and now I’ve missed out on the Gay Lifestyle. I have got to start attending club meetings.
I’m a card-carrying gay man. I get up, eat my ceral, read the paper, go to work to put in eight monotomous hours for The Man, after work I go to the gym, then I go home, have supper, play with my cat, and watch the tube. On weekends, I clean the house, and on Sundays I watch football. So there it is, my Gay Lifestyle. No drag, no show tunes, and no witty sitcom banter. (Well, OK, maybe a few show tunes)
I’m just like any other red-bloded American male, except that when Baywatch reruns are on, I’m checking out David Chokachi instead of Yasmine Bleeth. Will you hetero scaredycats (you know who you are) please stop demonizing gay folk? There’s nothing to be afraid of.
and a big hug to the Republicans. I’m a conservative, too.
Generalizations can be valid when they are applied to groups. They are not valid when applied to individuals.
While it’s become a stereotype the reason watermelon and fried chicken is associated with black people was because it was a staple of southern black cuisine.
“The Birdcage” both describes and celebrates a particular gay lifestyle. There are others in areas such as San Francisco and Key West.
There is also a lifestyle associated with urban black gang members, truckers, Appalachians, southern white men, New Yorkers, and various variety of redneck.
Any time you put a group of like minded together they will develop common ground. To interpret this in aggregate and call it a lifestyle is perfectly valid.
But that’s besides the point.
I’m pissed off at the whiny, petulant, accusatory tone of the OP.
Who cares? It’s not demeaning, it’s descriptive. Don’t you have better things to do than examining every nuance of language for the tiniest perceivable slight?
All the stuff you do makes up your lifestyle. If there are aspects of commonality (as there surely are) throughout that group, just as there are in any other group, why would this piss you off?
How does that saying go? Lighten up, get of the cross, we need the wood.
Scylla, semantically, you’re absolutely correct. But when somebody uses the phrase “the gay lifestyle” to me and doesn’t derogatorily mean it to include pederasty, fisting, drag queens and sexual perversion, then I’ll get over it.
Esprix
If we can use that wood for the pyre for you, tradesilicon, and Mr. Cynical, I’m fine with that. Otherwise, shut the hell up.
You are justifying oppression. What you fail to understand is that people often refer to being gay solely as a lifestyle and nothing else. That all being gay is about is a conglomeration of stereotypical behaviours and nothing more. This is not nitpicking, but making a valid complaint about an issue that is very relevant to me and many other gay people.
This is the fucking PIT. If you don’t like what is said, then go to another thread, you narrow minded imbecile. What you posted reinforces what a tiny mind you have and how you pigeonhole people to make your limited worldview.
How dare you tell me or any other gay person that it is not
demeaning? I spoke for myself and not the entire gay community. You’ve attempted to speak for ENTIRE communities at large. Just because outsiders have a perception of a community does not make them right.
Luckily, ‘The Birdcage’ is a universally bad example because it makes breeders look just as bad if not worse than gay people.
Esprix said:
Uh-uh.
Religion is a lifestyle choice, but separation of church and state isn’t a special right for the religious; it’s an exclusion designed to protect the purity of our federal government.
It was our founding fathers’ way of saying, “Don’t pollute our government with your religiosity. Make decisions based on the good of all people.”
Yeah, it rarely works; and yeah, the federal government frequently lets religion color its decisions, but ideally, it was not meant to be so.
Guinastasia summed it up, as far as I’m concerned: What difference does it make whether being gay is a lifestyle or innate? Anyone who tells you you don’t have a right to be gay is wrong.
I hear a lot of gay people on this board who seem so damn certain that their homosexuality is biological and genetic.
I’m a heterosexual. It is absolutely ingrained in me. It’s who I am.
Did I become this way through my genes, or did I learn it?
I haven’t the foggiest.
What makes you so sure?
You morons have gotten into a flame war over semantics.
“Gay lifestyle” denotes the style in which male homosexuals live their life. It is a fine line between generalization and sterotyping, but to give a safe example of a characteristic of the “gay lifestyle”, gay men generally don’t get married (yet).
“Gay lifestyle” connotes, esp. when used by certain proud homophobes, perversion, a conscious choice to be gay, pedophilia, and attempts to convert innocent young men to gaydom.
The connotation has overwhelmed the denotation. No, there is nothing wrong with the words themselves, but connotations change over time, and can become offensive. For example, 50 years ago, you were a progressive and PC kind of person if you used the term “colored” instead of the term “Negro”. Now days, if you called a black (african american) person “colored”, you could/should be slapped.
So, those of you defending the general use of the term “gay lifestyle”, wake up. In our majority culture, we generally allow the people being addressed to decide what is offensive. Lord knows all you Dagos, Spics, Frogs, etc. have made that point clear (FTR, I’m half bog-boy, half Nazi kraut). If gay people find the term offensive, it is.
As for you, Hastur, calm the fuck down. You are doing no good for your cause – you are acting like the crazy man screaming on the street. You may have a good point, but no one’s going to listen.
Sua
Esprix:
“Scylla, semantically, you’re absolutely correct. But when somebody uses the phrase “the gay lifestyle” to me and doesn’t derogatorily mean it to include pederasty, fisting, drag queens and sexual perversion, then I’ll get over it.”
Quite frankly, when I think of “gay lifestyle,” I picture those two guys from American Beauty, which is pretty close to my personal experience with the gay community.
I understand there’s another “gay lifestyle” in San Francisco, but I imagine that it has more to do with San Francisco than being gay.
At any rate, your stance seems very reasonable. I have never heard the phrase used in a demeaning fashion, but if it is, it is not the phrase that is at fault. It is a bigot who is trying to hide his bigotry behind an innocuous phrase. Perhaps the OP ought to consider whether the rant should be directed at the phrase, or those that use it as a weopon.
Hastur:
“You are justifying oppression.”
Oh stop it. That’s ridiculous.
“What you fail to understand is that people often refer to being gay solely as a lifestyle and nothing else.”
Ok, they’re wrong, so what? Does this mean that there is not a lifestyle associated with being Gay?
"How dare you tell me or any other gay person that it is not
demeaning? "
Because it’s not. In the English Fucking Language there is nothing inherently demeaning in the phrase “gay lifestyle.”
If you detect something there it is because either
-
You put it there.
-
The speaker implied it.
If you want to have a rant about bigots who bash gays without ever actually saying anything ofensive, who instead imply through apparent distaste or emphasis something unsavory about being gay, who snub, and associate perversion, while being polite on the surface, than that’s fine. I’m with you 100% Fuck those bastards.
If you want to beat up on an innocuous phrase that’s done nothing to you and inherently implies nothing, than you are a real dumbass. It’s like a guy who gets shot complaining about bullets. Don’t complain about bullets. Complain about people who shoot bulles at other people.
I find your snub at Republicans to be a cheap shot. You don’t like people implying anything about you, but you don’t seem to mind throwing it about. So, A hearty Fuck you for that!
And I will free to post anywhere I choose.
So how Dare I? It’s not a matter of opinion fuckface!
“I am he who dares drink, who knows that to drink is to die, yet dares drink on am I.” -Tom Thumb
Scylla, I’m with you, except for this. Technically, you are correct, there is no word/phrase in the English language that is inherently demeaning. But …
“Nigger”. Nothing wrong with the word itself, it’s just two phenomes put together. But for some reason, if I were to walk down the hallway and say, “How is the project coming along today, nigger?” to my black co-worker, I would probably get hit, and definitely get fired.
In my hypothetical, I didn’t imply anything demeaning by the word, but my black co-worker “put it there”. I’m still at fault.
Sua
No it isn’t. It is genuine. Just because you don’t believe it does not render it false.
No, there isn’t. Just as there is NOT a lifestyle associated with being black, irish, or catholic. The spectrum of diversity within a group is too broad to catagorize.
Wrong. The only time I hear about the ‘gay lifestyle’ is from bigots either on television or speaking to a large group of people trying to demonize gay men and women. I’ve never heard a straight or gay person who was reasonable use the term with anything but distaste.
It was a sarcastic remark to make a fucking point. If you are going to be ultra offended, don’t be a hypocrite and then expect me to NOT be offended. Fuck you back, and may Charybdis drag you back down to the depths you belong, you annoying bag of phlegm.
I’ve never heard the phrase used in a derogatory fashion. I’m perfectly willing to concede that it’s used that way.
Still, the Op says I’m a dumbass patronizing bastard because I don’t know.
Actually, I don’t care.
If you think the bigotry lies in the phrase, Any phrase, than you are fool. Stop being such a whiny bastard complaining about words. The bigots will just change the words. The bigotry itself will be unchanged. You want to get somewhere, attack the bigots themselves. Attack the attitude.
That’s what I’m trying to do here, Hastur. Because your attitude fucking sucks, and in it’s own way it serves to perpetuate this bullshit by attacking the symptoms, not the disease.
I have nothing whatsoever against gay people. I’ve known less than a dozen, and probably only had one or two (that I knew about) as friends. Not one of them had the whiny self-serving “Oh-poor-me-the-world-is-oppressing-me-with-its-incorrect phraseology” whiny bastard, you-owe-me-attitude. There sexual preference, and how they got that way mattered to me not one iota.
There’s a lot of people like me, who DON’T CARE about your sexual preference. It doesn’t matter. When you act like this, you alienate them, and you strengthen the bigot’s position.
Shit, Esprix’s a democrat? I had thought somebody as intelligent, diplomatic, and reasonable as he would naturally be a Republican. I’ll try not to hold it against him.
Incidentally, what is everyone’s problem with lisping and paisley? Since when are those capital crimes?
No, no, I agree with you, I was just using it as an extreme example of what these radical bigots would consider a “special right” based on a “lifestyle choice.” I sometimes use church tax-exempt status as another “special right” example.
Agreed. It oughtn’t matter - everyone is free to choose.
It’s not usually that I don’t have the right to be gay, it’s just that I’m wrong for exercising it. :rolleyes:
Esprix
There, there, Hastur. There, there. As far as I’m concerned you can be whatever you want to be.
:: ducks and runs ::
Okay, while there may be some people who are solidly gay or solidly straight, there is an apparent continuum between the poles where most people fall. How one chooses to express his sexuality is, for most people, a choice. Many years ago I had the option of opening up the bisexual side of my nature. (I wasn’t gettin’ any from women; gays seemed to get plenty; it was stylish, anyway) I chose not to. I am happy in my choice, although I have noticed that Kevin Sorbo is getting a new series. The thing is that I had a choice of the lifestyle I would follow, as did most of you. The dominant culture encourages heterosexuality, and those with weak homosexual tendencies gravitate there without thinking. The stronger “urges” may force someone to make a choice or to be a happy Bi. Others may find they are so totally uninterested in the opposite sex that the only choice is between being gay or sexless. And then there are the people who are basically uninterested in sex, who throw yet another spanner in the works.
Like Milo, I don’t know where the urges come from. Nature? Maybe. Nurture? Maybe. Too often people are absolutists who think there is no middle ground. There probably is.